Barrier And Bluepoint At Brewer's Choice

WFMU's Beer Hear! Blue Point and Barrier podcast

The Brewer's Choice event of Craft Beer Week was a boon for Beer Hear -- with all the breweries and their brewers on hand, we could have done a year's worth of shows! One of the breweries we spoke to was BLUE POINT of Patchouge, Long Island, NY.

Steve of Blueweiser... I mean BLUE POINT!

Blue Point was founded in 1998. At the time it was the only microbrewery on Long Island. Their original 25-barrel brewhouse produced the well known Toasted Lager (their #1 seller) and Hoptical Illusion (#2 seller) with a collection of equipment bought from a variety of other breweries, including a gorgeous direct-fire brick-encased kettle.

She's a brick (brau) haus.

They've since upgraded to a modern, more efficient custom-made system, on which they brewed the beers featured at the Brewers' Choice: a Sour Cherry Imperial Stout (10%abv) and a White IPA (6%abv) made with wheat malt, considered by some to be a Wit/American IPA hybrid.


Steve, a sales manager overseeing sales in five states, said that their beer is available from Florida to New England, in Pennsylvania and, just recently, as far west as Michigan. I think that it's somewhat available "from Montauk to Manhattan" as well!

 
Another Long Island craft brewery on hand was Barrier Brewing, of Oceanside, NY. Barrier is a fairly young enterprise, having been founded in 2009. Craig said that while there are about 9 breweries on Long Island, Barrier is the only one in Nassau County. (In consideration of that, I wonder if they'll brew a Dutch beer...)

BR, Craig of Barrier, Bob, and Bob's new haircut.

Both Craig and founder Evan worked at Sixpoint Brewing before Barrier, where they gained valuable brewing knowledge and experience. Prior to that, it was homebrewing, as is so often the case with craft brewers.

One of the beers that they featured at the Brewers' Choice was a delicious German style Rauchbier/Smoke Beer (5.4%abv) that they call Frau Blücher. 65% of the malt bill for the brew is imported German Rauchmalt (from Bamberg, we presume).

What better to go with LI oysters than LI beer?

He said that the brewery currently brews 27 different beers! We'd imagine that at least one of them would go well with some L.I. oysters -- though perhaps Naked Cowboy, Peconic Bay or Tomahawk oysters, more so than Blue Points!

Rehoboth Beach, DE -- More Than Just Dogfish Head

Since 2006 we've made an annual pilgrimage to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware -- at first, solely to pay our respects to one of the most interesting breweries in the world, DOGFISH HEAD. DFH started in this beach resort town in 1995, in the back of a restaurant, with a 5-gallon system, and has since grown into a craft beer giant, cranking out over 150,000 barrels annually (according to our tour guide). The main brewery is located about 17 miles from the brewpub, in Milton, DE. We highly recommend a trip and tour there!

Though we've taken the big-brewery tour several times and gone there to see our pal Sam, we've discovered that there's more to Rehoboth than Dogfish Head. Of course, there's the beach, and we love us some sand, waves and warm end-of-summer salty water. And if the beach downtown is too crowded for your taste, the state beach south on Rt. 1 is a short bike ride down the coast, and offers a lot more room to stretch out -- same gorgeous water and pure sand.

On the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk there's Thresher's Fries. They rank in my top 5 fries of all time, and that includes fries in Brussels. There's Grotto Pizza -- not worthy of comparison to NYC pies, but damn good for a non-NYC slice. There are loads of beachy shops, ready and willing for some haggling. (I got a $30 beach umbrella for $20 with some simple post-season negotiating!) And all the typical beach resort stuff -- frozen custard, salt water taffy, arcades, skee ball, and so forth.

We also discovered everyday happy-hour $1 local oysters at FIN'S!!! Fin's has one of the best beer menus (and oyster menus) on the eastern seaboard. Their tap list is often great, but it's always been at the very least very good. And what they offer in the bottle -- very impressive, shockingly good -- really superb for a small town on the beach that probably sees Coors Light outselling Weston's Cider 10,000-to-1... (but if I was in the mood for something that wasn't beer, I'd pick Weston's over Coors all day long). And, yes, they do carry Weston's Cider, to their credit -- in fact we had it on draft for the first time ever last year at Fin's.

And their staff seems genuinely concerned about taking care of you (maybe too concerned!). The bottom line:  very good beer, addictive (and free) oyster crackers, delicious and well-priced bi-valves, and friendly service. Oh, and their regular dining menu boasts boatloads of fresh local fish.

We also rented beach cruiser bicycles, $20 each for 24-hours. There aren't many miles of off-road trails, but we made the most of what was available, and it was grand. We biked a few miles off-road on former railroad beds to Lewes. There, we didn't find much better than Paulaner and Yuengling Octoberfest at Irish Eyes, on the canal. But... we did travel through a gated community where the speed limit was 21.

21? 21 feet per second? 21 what?!? and 21?!? Not 20 or 25? Perhaps the sign was supposed to be for the drinking age? Anyway, we moved along before B.R. was towed away. (As you can see, she was in a tow-away zone -- and in a town with a speed limit of 21, you know that they tow bicycles.)

Not that one would be bored of the DFH brewpub in 3 or 4 days, but it's always nice to have another option. This is another option.

At Fin's, one of the surprising offerings was HIGH AND MIGHTY Purity of Essence from Central Mass. In the photo above B.R. is in a more of a Brig. Gen. Jack Ripper moment.

And then more like Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake. Unfortunately, the beer we love fresh in Central Mass was a bit oxidized in DE. But we soldiered on. Or piloted on, whatever the case. No atomic bombs were dropped, which is the important thing.

The moon does also rise in Rehoboth.

Going after Labor Day assures you of greater availability of rooms, a cheaper room rate and far less other visitors to get in your way. Five years ago when we went to Rehoboth Beach for the first time, it was a ghost town after Labor Day. This year, while still far from crowded, there were a lot more people, and not just the retiree set and young couples with infants. We always stay at the Cross Winds motel, which is clean, comfortable, friendly, inexpensive and, most importantly, 20 feet from the Dogfish Head brewpub! They'll give you a discount if you tell them that you're there from the brewpub, too.

And rise red, at that.

OK, couples photo with the rising moon.

Lifeguards... so bossy.

The sun sets in the west, as the moon rises in the east.

FACT: Rehoboth is reputed to be one of the most gay-friendly small towns in America.

There's also a sun rise, where the moon rise was just hours earlier.

We're going for breakfast now, right?

People in France are just an hour away from their 3-hour government mandated lunch "hour".

Add your own new age comment here.

Pretty Things St-Botolph's Town

Jimmy's No. 43 is only 2 blocks from home, so, there's rarely a good excuse to not go there. But when our pal Jim of PRETTY THINGS has a beer featured, AND there are oysters on offer -- we're there!

The ST-BOTOLPH'S TOWN "rustic dark ale" was pouring from the tap and it was good. The beer has a nice mild chocolate flavor mixed with a mild dried dark fruit flavor, a little bitterness and a deep dark cola-brown color. It's a full bodied beer, smooth, mellow and offering a gentle sweet finish and aftertaste.

The brewery's website has this to say about it: "This Yorkshire-inspired beer is a big malty brown ale fermented in open squares with Yorkshire malts and eclectic yeast strains. This is another of our year-round offerings."

Did We mention that it was oyster night at Jimmy's No. 43

By "eclectic" I think that they might mean "Belgian" because there are plenty of Belgian esters and yeast flavors mixing about in this ale.  It clocks in at under 6%, but given the distinct alcohol note as it warms, I'd have guessed higher. Then again, the smoothness of the beer angles more towards a direction under 7%.

B.R., Jimmy, Bob and Jim of Pretty Things

I love what their website has to say about the beer and the brewery's philosophy: "... we don't do beer 'styles' straight up, as it doesn't leave any room for  creativity. Instead we take our inspiration from great beers as a starting point."

Also available that evening was a BELGIAN PALE ALE from BARRIER called BELGIAN 1.

It had a nice gold color, light lacy head, and was extremely easy to drink. I seemed like a "small" triple, that made up for it's size with a kick of hops. Though 7.5% isn't what I'd call a small beer of any style. This seemed like one of those style-defying beers, for which the only things that count are, is it good, and would you have another. This one passes, easily.